Communications Meeting Notes

Owned by Mikah Pinegar
Last updated: Nov 12, 2024 by Elizabeth Seyler
11 min read

11-12-24

WordPress

New tickets coming:

  • We need a single webpage stating USB’s privacy policy to link the new footer to. It will need new header, footer, and subscribe button.

  • We need to start tackling the Take Action subscriber lists (they need to go through some sort of email cleaning – possibly lots of dead/defunct accounts that would muddy our email statistics, which are clean and powerful right now). Let’s just input the nicer, cleaner smaller lists and label them separately, as Take Action subscribers.

  • The video page needs a header and search option, subscribe button color change and center videos.

  • The factsheet page needs a header and search options, subscribe button color change

Comms

  • Amy Sullivan will join us next week. Based in Oxford, Miss.

  • Emily will add Elizabeth to the Outreach meeting at GROW starting Nov. 21

  • Comms handoff: Kayla has taken over everything but social media, which Elizabeth is doing just this week.

    • Kayla working on the newsletter

    • Kayla starting socials next week

    • PSA website priorities: Still some clean-up to do on old links showing up in Google search results

  • Emily want to review the soc media posts? Sarah’s good with them.

  • Emily has some new research papers to be written up – what is Elizabeth’s current bandwidth for writing?

    • Elizabeth is editing a book chapter for Heather, written by many people. Will know more later this week. Will let Emily know later this week and will let Emily know on Thursday how much time they will take. Chapter due at end of next week. More critical end of Dec, early Jan.

  • We need to add images of people collecting AgField IR images of cover crops to the wishlist.

    • Eliz and Kayla will both watch for photos in Slack that could be added to Comms/Photos folders by topic. Navjot uploaded some to #image-repositories, and Eliz downloaded and added them to the AgImageRepo folder.

  • PSA-GROW Style Guide

11-06-24

WordPress:

Gameplan for inputting updates trade names/active ingredients database: Diksha did all the active ingredients associated with sites of action on her own. Will tackle the next upgrade next week probably.

Update on what interns are working on:

  • Brennen finished footer and subscriber box update and it looks great!

  • Emily will make a new ticket for headers on Take Action pages including the logo and then having the title underneath.

  • Brennen is getting trained on back-end development so he will get spread even thinner.

  • Emily will start adding new content to the pages.

 

Comms

  • Housing and registration for Commodity Classic exhibitors opens on Thursday next week. Emily will register both herself and Elizabeth and try to grab housing ASAP. (It goes fast). Watch for communications on that. Might need P-card info, for example.

  • USDA conference in mid-November. Elizabeth is planning to cover it. https://events.tti.tamu.edu/conference/2024-forum-on-ai-applications-to-usda-science/

  • Emily needs two tabletop banners – can she borrow your template/supplier? Elizabeth designed hers through Canva 11 X 17 banner, printed through Staples. Elizabeth will send a link.

  • Emily looking through weed science journals for monthly news assignments and will be in touch with some if she finds them for Elizabeth.

  • Comms hand-off-- Elizabeth & Kayla will decide during meeting with Sarah how slow or fast the transition of each resources will be.

    • Victoria requests that Elizabeth keep Anna Morrow in the loop on User Testing; she’ll be added to the 9 a.m. Tuesday meetings.

    • We lost Claire Akin; a replacement Cora Bobo-Shisler is coming but will have to play catch-up and may delay the western seeding rate calculator data for a year.

  • Social media this week: GROW Releases New Herbicide Resistance Resource for the Industry. Will on PSA accounts on FB, X, LinkedIn; will create a post for Instagram.

  • New GROW/Take Action comms team member, Amy Sullivan, will start joining these meetings in late November.

10-29-24

WordPress

Let’s go through the Take Action Landing page with Nisarg

Tag Brennen when you tell Nisarg to add the Take Action footer

Adam is adding to the Landing page ticket that we see if we can change the color scheme of the subscribe box on Take Action landing pages. At some point, we’ll to change that text to GROW & Take Action

Can we look at the Herbicide Look-up tool, too? Diksha finishing up some javascript work and will turn to this on Thursday. Will need to do herbicide inputs together later this week – Emily, Adam and Diksha

Emily is nearing place where she can start uploading updated factsheets, so will take a close look at that and the video page to make sure it all looks okay.

Farmer Forum accordion page is now in GitHub

Comms

Elizabeth/Heather: Elizabeth available to GROW for writing/editing

Will do initial clean-up on the GROW/PSA Style Guide

Elizabeth may start joining GROW outreach meetings as needed

Kayla will be invited to this meeting moving forward to keep everyone looped in on her PSA work

Emily will work up new duty/job list for new GROW team member (Amy) and Elizabeth

Emily will make the new meeting and add Adam/Elizabeth/Victoria/Mikah/Kayla

Webpage Acknowledgements. Needs award number for “United Soybean Board (USB) Project: One-Stop Shop for Farmers: Bringing Chemical and Non-Chemical Weed Control Resources Together for the Industry.”

10-22-24

WordPress

Let’s start getting the Take Action pages built, if they’re not in progress already (Landing Page and Chart page, in particular).

Farmer Forum accordion page: Emily will add this soon.

Herbicide Look-up Tool: Diksha should be wrapping up this week. Tool should be finished – need to add herbicides in this week or early next week. Nail in it by next Friday.

WP Engine has a daily 5 a.m. ET back-up that you can always restore the website to, for future page meltdowns:

10-15-24

WordPress

Emily has a rush website update: adding factsheets to the CC Termination Webpage – look for a ticket shortly. Needs to be in place and functional before Oct. 23. Brennen will start work on this tomorrow. Emily will assign it to Brennen in GitHub, Slack and in a blurb within the ticket.

Herbicide Look-up Tool status update? Hit a roadblock – trying to figure out how to get around it. Brendan and Diksha will be tackling it the end of this week.

Still working on Farmer Forum page ticket

Comms

Newsletter – Emily still needs to get to this, sorry

Emily will send Farmer Forum advertisement to Elizabeth on Monday for listserv distribution

Still want to review PSA soc media? Emily will take a look.

User testing updates/needs?

GROW writing projects – when should they commence?

  • Can start ASAP – Emily will start passing them on.

Webpage Acknowledgements. Susan W has no info nor an award number for “United Soybean Board (USB) Project: One-Stop Shop for Farmers: Bringing Chemical and Non-Chemical Weed Control Resources Together for the Industry.” Are you sure it should be listed?

10-08-24

WordPress

  • Database of active ingredients: Brennen and Diksha working on this to button up the look-up tool this week. Emily, Adam & Diksha will work on manually annotating herbicides.

  • Cover Crop termination accordions done and ready to be moved to Production

  • New ticket from Emily: Farmer Forum page under Resources

  • New Outreach person in interviews

Comms

  • Clarifying for when Kayla takes over. The PSA Ag Events Calendar is redundant with what Victoria collects for grant reporting, such as this SAS-CAP spreadsheet. Some PSA researchers balk at being asked to also send me outcomes. Others are fine with sending photos, # and type of attendees, etc., like recently from Esleyther. Victoria fine with my duplicate efforts, which are useful for newsletter and social media.

    • Check Victoria’s reporting before asking researchers for info, at the end of grant year

  • VegSpec, GitHub, user testing

  • Oct newsletter content

    • Emily will send Elizabeth a visual and blurb for the GROW Farmer Forum on Nov 18

  • Selected Publications page sections: Outreach, Scientific Articles

    • SAS CAP is ending, and we’re becoming a tech and services data team; publications page useful how?

  • PSA Photos – reviewing/organizing folders, collecting high-res for Media Kit and to know what’s missing

  • Emily will start sending some GROW writing work to Elizabeth as she pivots to User Testing Coordinator position more fully.

10-02-24

WordPress

  • Status of current tickets?

  • Still waiting on database of active ingredients

    • Emily will nag Christy for this.

Comms

  • Conference went well! Elizabeth will email an intern suggestion to Christ, Steven, Mikah, and Adam and ping them on Slack. Will put newsletter sign-up out next time.

  • Taking trainings in GitHub, Teams, SharePoint for user-testing management and NRCS interactions

  • Website:

    • Pubs web page coming along; Google alerts pick up far more than we can use bc many not PSA funded

    • Completing other page revisions before passing it to Kayla

  • Gradual transfer to Kayla this month; Elizabeth will start diving into VegSpec and the drone software V1

  • Reviewing photo needs before friendly competition and Oct trip

  • Order more swag for Steven

    • 20 hats and 20 tumblers

    • Overall, we need more tote bags

  • Soc media post for this week

09-10-24

WordPress

09-20-24

WordPress

  1. Look-up Tool – still waiting on database of active ingredients

  2. New page for Chart

  3. Staging site transferred to Production Site, except Look-up Tool

  4. Two new Github issues coming from Emily:

    1. New Accordion for CC Termination page

    2. https://cals.cornell.edu/weed-science/weed-identification/pigweed-identification Need to add

    3. Make ticket for the Landing Page of Take Action

09-10-24

WordPress

  1. Herbicide resistance page status update

  2. MailPoet transition complete – 2,500 subscribers; newsletter goes out tomorrow (fingers crossed)

  3. Updates from Adam:

    1. Look-up tool: Almost ready for spreadsheet input – Emily will remind Take Action this week.

      1. Emily add ticket on adding Group # with screenshot to show where it goes, put it on first upgrade ticket.

    2. Nisarg fixing issue with Video Look-up page

    3. YouTube button: Nisarg will add a space

Communications

  1. Adam?…”Updates to Google Drive connection to Squarespace forms

  2. ISTRO presentation and poster; tips on mailing promo materials to a hotel?

    1. Poster needs to be finalized this week; Elizabeth will send both to Emily & Steven

  3. Media Kit drafting precisionsustainableag.org/home-1-mediakit

    1. Eliz will ask the CCC leaders whether they want to share their logos; set folder to “completely public” at the bottom

    2. Be sure to provide photo attribution instructions: PSA

  4. Sifting through / managing Google Scholar alerts

    1. Emily looks at journals, not using Google Scholar: primary researchers and topics that sound relevant; sometimes she asks GROW leadership;

    2. Make a list of articles for Sarah to review

  5. Very low response rate to soc media posts. Ways to improve?

    1. Ask folks to follow/promote you in the newsletter

    2. Just keep posting! It’s often a slow build

    3. Consider paid promotion options--maybe LinkedIn only

  6. Media registration for AGU in DC in Dec

  7. friendly competition for great PSA photos? Low-hanging fruit, prizes

  8. Creating schedule for Oct 23-25 trip

    1. Will start at Building 3 for check-in

    2. 1:15 appointment to pick USDA ID at Building 3

    3. E will talk with Maria Laura; she organizes mini-tours for people coming to BARC

  9. Final CC-Seeding Rate Calc color design decision: Emily will send the last two options to Mark VG for his perspective

09-03-24

WordPress

  1. Herbicide Resistance 2 page status update

  2. Nisarg working on video search option for TA video page

  3. Herbicide Look-up tool status update

    1. Take Action working on the CSV file of active ingredients

    2. Emily will break that into two different tickets

  4. Take Action chart landing page – the Google order form is in place on the old website & already taking orders!

  5. Github ticket priority discussion

Comms/DSTs

  • Eliz visit Oct 23-25 or 28-30? Mikah in Ashville, 4 hours from Raleigh. He might be able to come to Raleigh while I’m there. Eliz leaning toward former; Thu/Fri good for Mikah right now. (Adam is in San Diego, Calif)

  • Working with Victoria on ISTRO presentation/poster

  • Emily will review social media posts this afternoon

  • Don’t talk about the Gates project on any public-facing media

08-27-24

WordPress

  1. Herbicide Resistance 2 page: status update & request for back up from Brennen

    1. Adam will recommend this.

  2. Herbicide Look-up Tool status update

    1. Emily will make tickets for the upgrades

      1. Trade names = Alternative Trade Names with same Site of Action and collapsed into accordion that can be opened.

      2. Make each Herbicide SOA read: Site of Action – NAME

      3. Create CSV showing which actives in which trade name for which trade name (ask Christy?) which will be used to create a relationship and output with the Look-up Tool to generate ONLY the active ingredients in each trade name.

        1. Make note that we COULD keep the full listing of actives in a each SOA and just make it collapsible and labeled Alternative Active Ingredients with same SOA.

  3. Take Action chart page update from Emily

    1. Emily & Creative B3 created a Google order form

    2. Can add a Github ticket now on this, but might also try to embed the order form in the old Take Action website so it’s a smoother ordering process for Creative B3 from now until new webpages launch.

  4. Footer progress?

  5. Migration meeting at 1 p.m. reminder for Adam & Mikah

Comms/DSTs

  1. Africa visit with Gates Foundation & CGIAR network went well. Pilot project with phenotyping software & hardware, hoping for 2-year continuation. Uses a version of Oak-D camera, six of them mounted on three sides; collects images and metadata.

  2. Game Theory is compiling results from user testing. Went over new design they are experimenting with based on A-B testing. Will probably send Slack of new design images and let PSA crowd weigh in. Once confident with that, will build out other pages of seeding rate calculator.

  3. 61 responses from user testing; just missing one farmer. Results still coming in from asynch testing. Most testing was 1-on-1; actually didn’t accomplish too much async testing.

  4. Next Tuesday 9 a.m. meeting will be looking at mock-ups Marguerite is working on. Hoping many people can come.

  5. GitHub task Conduct Seeding Rate Calculator User Testing is closed

08-20-24

WordPress

  1. Have an even higher res Take Action logo now, but I think the white one looks pretty good.

    1. Any progress on changing the footer? Adam is going to work on assigning it out. Probably out to Brennen.

  2. Herbicide Look-up Tool: We have a spreadsheet from Christy that contains the current actives & trade names.

    1. Diksha is working hard on this and it is taking a lot of work, time and troubleshooting. Immensely complex

  3. Herbicide Resistance page: any progress from new intern? (Nisarg)

    1. Nisarg has the right template

  4. Mail Poet is on the to-do list this week! We have time – still have 190 subscribers left on free plan.

  5. Emily will create a Github ticket for the Take Action ancillary page. With order form for the chart.

  6. Emily will create a Github ticket for adding links to the YouTube channel to the website.

07.30.2024

WordPress

  1. Factsheet Page Update

    1. Emily reached out to Creative B3 for a high-res Take Action logo

    2. Change name to Take Action Resources & orange color

  2. Herbicide Look-up Tool progress

  3. Brennen walk-through of adding a Resources page to A Wordpress site

  4. Take Action Meeting tomorrow!

    1. Brennen will try to have the mock-up Resources page polished and ready to show

    2.  

  5. Mail Poet & Herbicide Resistance page still pending…

  6. New Confluence page for WP Engine: WP Engine How To

DST/Comms

  1. Logging into social media accounts: let’s get it done by end of week

07.23.24

WordPress

  1. MailPoet: Emily still needs to address this.

  2. Searchable factsheet set-up: Brennen will address this

  3. Diksha working on Herbicide Look-up Tool

    1. Getting information moved over to GROW development site

  4. Take Action Meeting: July 31

  5. Emily will send Herbicide Resistance page to Brennen/Diksha by the end of the week.

DST/Comms

  1. Elizabeth working on newsletter and drafting PSA in the News posts

  2. Both Mikah and Elizabeth have USDA guest contractor onboarding training to do

  3. 1.5 weeks out from Ag Media Summit

  4. Thursday Extension meeting - Elizabeth is attending and will bring PSA & NECCC materials

  5. Down the road, Elizabeth may need a proper camera (Nikon/Canon) for high resolution images for web/promotional materials.

07.09.24

WordPress

  1. MailPoet: Emily got permission to use purchase card for subscription; will proceed.

  2. Farmer Case Study webpage: are we good to push to production? Yes. Emily slacked Brennen.

  3. Second HR page will be in Brennen’s hands soon – maybe end of this week.

    1. Might be Diksha working on it, with back-up support from Brennen.

  4. Take Action meeting set for July 31.

  5. PDFs editing: We can import the PDFs into Canva and update them there. Tables will be tricky – have to add a table (Elements), overlay it with the old one, recreate the cell structure and add your new information.

 

DST/Comms

  1. NRCS Facilitator meetings: going well?

    1. Yes, 10 scheduled this week and Elizabeth popping in as she is able.

    2. Fine to let them get up to speed with PDFs, but Eliz will still tweak and publish pages. Better for Cover Crop Council managers. Probably best to send the links to those to Karl so he can house them internally for the NRCS team.

    3. Cover Crop Council facilitators? Meeting tomorrow at 1 p.m.

  2. PWM page: Elizabeth has a Google doc where she suggests text and photo revisions and suggestions for links to PSA webpage.

  3. Sarah gave a kill order for the short blurb write-ups for each published paper for the website

    1. Elizabeth will hang onto the ones she did (5) and we’ll find another home for them. Maybe news page, or newsletter.

  4. July 12th meeting still on.

  5. Elizabeth will try to make Ag Media Summit webinar tomorrow.

  6. Elizabeth 4-month review – is there a format we’re supposed to follow, per UVM?

07-02-24

WordPress

  1. Mail Poet Update?

    1. Emily needs to sign into her account, purchase the level, will get an activation key and replace it with the current one in MailPoet plug-in.

    2. She needs to check with VA Tech on how to purchase that.

  2. Take Action: Adam and Brennan are going to start pulling factsheets over and building the new webpage, so we have something to show the Take Action team in July.

  3. Farmer Case Study webpage:

    1. Let’s add it under IWM as a third dropdown menu option on the staging site and then Emily will send that staging site link to the Outreach team.

  4. Weed ID library pages: go ahead and make them direct links (as long as they open in new tabs).

    1. Emily will make a Github issue to fix this.

  5. Take Action meeting (only 3 responded, including Emily at the moment) for the meeting poll.

    1. Adam will fill it out and Emily will send out a reminder later this week.

DST/Comms Team

  1. NRCS having difficulty accessing Google products

    1. need to ask Shannon and Marguerite to make settings as public as possible

  2. Thoughts on Precision Weed Management page and fleshing it out?

  3. NRCS VegSpec comms piece – status?

    1. done

  4. Can we get the PSA Twitter & Facebook account re-started this month – maybe a post about new webpage design?

    1. Could Buffer be a good resource for PSA? Probably more work than its worth.

  5. Elizabeth working on PlantMap 3D poster

  6. Elizabeth is headed to an NRCS office to do eAuth; Emily needs to find an NRCS office that will do this for her.

  7. Journal assessing: Elizabeth setting up Google Scholar alerts for PSA researchers

    1. plus going through current published papers and writing up short blurbs for a Resources page

  8. She is still setting up Google alerts – she’ll do that after she finishes the list of names Steven will review.

  9. July 12th 10 a.m. meeting with a State of the DSTs & user testing for all cover crop councils

06-25-24

Attending: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Mikah Pinegar, Adam Smith

WordPress

  1. MailPoet meeting Take 2 with Adam & Emily – scheduled for Wed

  2. Old Google workspace – email seems defunct; we’ll let it go.

  3. Farmer Case Study webpage update

    1. Adam and Brennen are meeting on this and will review design options with Emily on Wed meeting, plus hopefully fix missing images from PWM page

  4. Move to Google Analytics 4.0 update

    1. yes all done!

  5. Update on floating download button

    1. These are done

    2. Adam will change the color to the brighter green and offer examples of blockier button option.

  6. Do we want our out-linked items to go to a landing page and link, or straight to the resource? Question for Outreach team.

  7. Herbicide Resistance Management page is through peer review & almost ready for the web upload

  8. Meeting scheduled with Adam and Emily for late July to discuss a pivot to ingesting Take Action material into the website, starting in mid-August.

    1. Emily will try to nail down their priorities for the new webpage by that meeting

    2. Emily will also try to create a meeting the second to last week of July with Adam & Take Action team. First week of August he is not super available, so between July 24 to end of July.

DST/Comms Team

  1. Confluence and GitHub links Mikah gave Eliz are on the new DSTs page

    • we still need a Confluence one for Econ tool. Mikah: Not avail anytime soon; Rick working on that.

  2. Fleshing out Precision Weed Management pages on GROW – Elizabeth will review it and send Emily/Adam her list of suggested updates/changes/revisions.

  3. Emily will look into grant titles for PSA web page Acknowledgements.

  4. Elizabeth doing a table for PSA/NECC at a field day at UVM July 25.

  5. Emily will make a folder in PSA comms of photos from the June USDA event that Maria Laura and Steven attended.

  6. Victoria taking a first stab at a comms piece on what NRCS is doing with VegSpec with PSA & the Councils and will loop us in for an edit.

06-18-24

Canceled

06-11-24

Attending: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Adam Smith

WordPress

  1. MailPoet: doesn’t do phone calls; they sent a detailed list of steps, and Emily & Adam should meet to go through it. Meeting at 12:30 p.m. June 13 to do this.

  2. Adam is finishing finalizing our move to Google Analytics 4.0

  3. WMP landing page: should be ready for Production (URL question for Adam)

  4. New web projects:

    1. Floating button for download factsheet on Weed ID pages

      1. May need to replace the Subscribe button those pages

      2. Adam will look into this after Emily makes a Github issue and assigns him

    2. Could WMP be a slightly interactive web page farther down the road?

    3. New Farmer Case Study page

      1. Cover crop & HWSC

      2. Set up a ticket for design conversations in GitHub, and they’ll have some ideas

        1. Emily will create a more comprehensive list of the case studies we have

DST/Comms Team

  1. OK to encourage NRCS folks to try out the Seeding Rate Calc between now and when user testing starts?

    1. https://covercrop-seedcalc.org/

  2. Staff page: Adam’s title? (when FT); Emily and Eliz’s titles?

    1. Front-end Website Developer

    2. Emily: Director of Outreach and Extension GROW; Outreach and Communications Specialist

    3. Elizabeth: Outreach and Communications Specialist

  3. Anyone missing from Slack requests for headshots and titles?

  4. Did Emily receive the PSA newsletter? Nope. Mikah not likely.

  5. Mikah unifying timelines across projects. GitHub Roadmaps

  6. Eliz current focus: drafting user testing materials to send to GT. Getting leadership feedback on new website pages, finalizing and publishing. Then: Outreach Deliverables Calendar, Comms plan, Google alerts, doc templates and PSA Comms folder cleanup.

06-04-24

In attendance: Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar

WordPress (Push to next week when Adam is back)

  1. MailPoet: doesn’t do phone calls; they sent a detailed list of steps, and Emily & Adam should meet to go through it.

  2. WMP landing page: should be ready for Production (URL question for Adam)

DST/Comms Team

User Testing meeting:

Emily & Elizabeth: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ifiSTCHvxS654zowuQGwrhoDtLtQdelSN5QPDtV6zM/edit?usp=sharing

05-28-24

In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd

WordPress

  1. MailPoet: Let’s gather all the information we have, and get on a call with MailPoet, Adam says.

    1. last message from John Himics: I believe you'll have to create a new account here: https://www.mailpoet.com/ just for a license key.

      We have a basic one (and a legacy plan that's not offered anymore), but all the configuration is on the site's side, not MailPoets, as far as I remember.

      You'll also want to put an SMTP plugin in place and a transactional email system, so the website can more reliably send emails. We've used MailGun in the past for our sites, and I believe we mentioned that on the transfer notes.

  2. Emily can send a draft of the Weed Management Planner landing page to Adam & Brennan. Emily will make a ticket for this.

  3. Auto-scroll on the Herbicide-Resistance page

  4. Subscribe button on HR page? Adam can’t find the reason; in the interim, let’s update it to open in a new tab, so people don’t lose the HR page.

DST/User Testing

  1. People need to fill out the survey by FRIDAY. Need leadership to show up on Tuesday next week so we can review the survey and have a list of goals to hash out and finalize.

  2. We’re going to have to reschedule – let’s slack Shannon and ask for a different time slot next week. Tuesday, June 4, between 1 to 3 p.m. or Monday, June 3, between 3 and 4 p.m. are times when Steven, Mikah, and possibly Chris can come. Eliz asking Heather, Marguerite, Shannon.

PSA/GROW (Emily & Elizabeth)

 

05-14-24

In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Elizabeth Seyler

WordPress

  1. Herbicide Resistance Page status

    1. Emily will do a final review of the page & give the go-ahead to publish

    2. Still working on fixing auto-scroll

  2. Adam & Emily will meet and figure out increasing the MailPoet subscription

DST/User Testing

  1. Emily: Cover Crops Council Testing Roles in DSTs. Eliz to send to WCCC folks.

  2. Mikah is showing Steven the Admin Roles we created to set the goals for DST user testing and once confirmed, we’ll send it to Marguerite.

05-07-24

In attendance: Adam Smith, Emily Unglesbee, Victoria Ackroyd, Mikah Pinegar, Elizabeth Seyler

WordPress

  1. DNS transfer complete! Happy Dance

    1. Emily has successfully sent out a newsletter & made changes to posts, with no issues

      1. But old newsletters are now full of dead links – Emily sent an example to Adam so he can investigate. Not high priority.

    2. Hoping post notifications on old site will remain inactive, as long as no news posts are happening there. We’ll know for sure tomorrow morning.

    3. When do we kill the old site?

      1. Once we’re satisfied the WP Engine has everything and there are no complications or anything to retrieve, we should let First Ascent know.

    4. Has Adam met with First Ascent yet?

      1. Yes they recommended an import/export tool

      2. Having trouble trying to move the Herbicide/MOA lookup tool; Adam is going to keep trying this week but if no progress, let’s halt and consider rebuilding the tool entirely using an updated data set of AIs and trade names, later on, when the grant is finalized.

      3. Brennen is going to work on Weed Pages non-centered video issue

  2. Adam & interns working through short list of minor issues (not all related to the transfer) – any issues or questions?

  3. Herbicide Resistance page status?

    1. Brennen has some mock-ups ready to share – look for them after this meeting

    2. Emily has the draft of a second Herbicide Resistance page in editing and will be ready for addition soon.

    3. Brennen is moving from 40 hrs/week to 5-10 hrs/week in late May, so his time will be shorter then.

  4. Emily needs some budget line items to share with group of specialty crop weed scientists who are interested in getting their content shared through the GROW website/network

    1. Mikah can look into the intern costs at different education levels, colleges, type of work

    2. Elizabeth can offer some page and web building numbers, too

    3. The meeting is May 17th

DST Communications

  1. Definitions document sent to NRCS? Yes

  2. Emily & Elizabeth did the eAuth thing but is not sure it worked.

    1. Let’s see if Lori can find and “sponsor us”

  3. Status of using GitHub for project management for DSTs?

    1. Elizabeth will look into it on her own (GitHub projects), then Mikah & Elizabeth will meet 3 p.m. on Monday, May 20th to discuss.

04-30-24

In attendance: Mikah Pinegar, Emily Unglesbee, Elizabeth Seyler, Victoria Ackroyd, Adam Smith

WordPress

  1. Update on DNS transfer from Mikah?

    1. Mikah initiated a transfer to new registrar, Porkbun, for 60 days and then it can be transferred back to Squarespace. Transfer should be complete within 5 days, and then this Saturday, Mikah can update the DNS to point to the WP Engine site.

  2. Meeting with First Ascent on how they handled development & release

    1. EMAIL FROM NICK: I've spoken with the development team and we agree that this would be best talked through, rather than sent over. After meeting with Sean, we've taken a look at our calendars and we would love to set up a 30 minute call with you to discuss this. 

      I've included our availability below. Please let us know if you have 30 minutes during any of these timeslots:

      • May 1st (1pm-4pm)

      • May 2nd (10am-12pm) (3pm-5pm)

      • May 3rd (10am-1:30pm)

      • May 6th (11am-1pm) (3pm-5pm)

        • Adam will get back to them with his availability

  3. Emily has created this week’s news post on two sites: First Ascent & WP Engine, and will be doing the same for a newsletter going out this week. That kosher?

  4. Post notifications need to be in off position on ALL websites except the First Ascent one on Wed.

  5. Any updates on other web project progress (Brennan requested Google Drive access to HR page docs, but he should already have it)

    1. Ameya has finished with Toolbox; Adam will review

    2. Brennen now has access to the HR Page mock-ups

      1. Emily, Adam & Brennen should meet to discuss what changes we’re looking for. Adam will check on Brennen’s availability.

    3. Adam is 75% done with Herbicide Lookup Tool transferred. Need to rename Take Action “weeds” category to “herbicides”

Communications

Good idea for Eliz to use Confluence to help manage user testing? Scheduling, comm with developers, keeping track of GT. If so, suggest any tutorials? Mikah uses GiHub projects, 8 people. Set up own columns, views, etc. Make issues in a repository, then projects link to issues and tie them together. Create views and columns and buckets. I can set it up.

Steer clear of Trello.

Action Items:

  • Adam will schedule with First Ascent for meeting

  • Mikah will update the DNS on Saturday morning

  • Adam will check when Brennen is available to discuss the HR page

04-23-24

In attendance: Emily, Mikah, Elizabeth, Adam & Victoria

WordPress

  1. Website transition plan: Emily & Adam still working through some migration issues

    1. Still on track for Saturday? 

      1. Emily will go into the backroom and make the small changes (1, 2 & 6) she can do on her own; other two new news page posts can be handed off to Brennen.

      2. Adam will try pulling in ALL news categories and see if that fixes missing news pages; if not, he’ll delete all and try importing them from the old site.

    2. Media cleaner produced problematic results – another plan?

    3. Emily needs to add GitHub issue on Toolbox Menu changes

    4. Interns will then start work on Herbicide Resistance page redesign

    5. Adam will tackle Take Action transition.

Communications

  1. Mikah’s list of DST roles?

    1. User testing roles, Mikah will look in notes.

  2. Confluence and GitHub links (and images?) for DSTs new web page

    1. Decision Support Tools this link contains links to all of the tools, and a link to the GitHub organization

  3. Current DST timeline, including adding history of each DST; in a month, completion of Seeding Rate and Species Selector; VegSpec is close, too; Econ, possibly, too

  4. One tutorial for each DST or four (one for each region)? Mikah: Start with one; if people find it confusing might need one for each council. They’re pretty similar. West will have irrigation and other variations. “Filters might be diff in diff regions, but most elements the same.” Let users know they may see diff crops, diff input sheets, but getting same type of info at end and options to revise. West uses ecoregions, state, and another factor, but these are populated when farmers enter address.

  5. most farmers are working with cover crop mixes

  6. Puerto Rico

    1. NRCS folks are expected to manage in English

    2. Not concerned with the tool being in Spanish

    3. Job sheet

    4. Victoria will send a job sheet

Action Items

  1. Victoria will send Mikah a job sheet

  2. Mikah will look in notes for user testing roles

    1. User testing

      • NRCS will be a part of the councils user testing group

        • NRCS is identifying users now (approx 120 so far)

        • All the councils + NRCS together for testing each tool

        • First test will be learning the process, they should be great by the time we get to vegspec

        • NRCS facilitators may go out and find farmers, or they may have other NRCS people test the tool

        • NRCS people will be both facilitators and testing the tool

        • Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month

      • Councils

        • Council project manager identifies 2-3 facilitators (council members, farmers, university agent, seed rep, etc)

        • Each facilitator will find 3-4 farmers to test the tool

        • Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month

        • No incentives will be provided

      • Priorities

        • Highest priority → seeding rate calculator

        • Next highest → economics

        • Then vegspec in stages based on readiness

      • Role of the game theory liaison from PSA (@Elizabeth Seyler)

        • Schedules trainings between game theory and trainers

        • Makes sure benchmarks are filled out

        • Communicates with developers (patch notes, current issues)

        • Communicates back to all 4 councils about the status of the testing and release schedule of the tools

        • Keeps track of game theory and their next steps, timelines, etc

      • Questions as a group

        • Are we doing testing sessions per council or all together?

        • Will users choose a tool to test or do them in a sequence?

        • Will NRCS identify a list of facilitators?

        • Who will be the NRCS point f contact for user testing?

  3. Emily will go into the backroom and make the small changes (1, 2 & 6) she can do on her own; other two new news page posts can be handed off to Brennen.

  4. Adam will try pulling in ALL news categories and see if that fixes missing news pages; if not, he’ll delete all and try importing them from the old site.